Sectionals

Sectionals. They started on my birthday. Which meant that I would technically be 15 for a few extra days. It would be my last meet as a 15-year-old.

It started on Thursday, December 13, and I was exhausted from the action-packed 3-day meet that I mentioned in my post previous post: Las Vegas!!!. Katelyn and I had made it for a couple individuals, and Jordan and Makenna would join us for the relays on Saturday and Sunday. This meet, held at the Belmont Olympic Pool in Long Beach, CA, was decidedly more professional and businesslike than any meet I had ever been to. All of the swimmers who qualified for sectionals were insanely fast, many of them just coming back from Junior Nationals the week before.

Before my first race, the 100 free, I was sitting up at the bleachers and caught sight of people's bag tags on their backpacks. Many of them read 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, or 2012 North American Cup Challenge - huge meets that indicated that the people here were extremely talented, and some of the best in the nation. I was in a pond with some pretty big fish. This wasn't your regular age group meet, this was a senior meet, where everyone was competing against everyone, and age wasn't a factor. I saw people as young as 12, and people past college-age competing. By the end of the meet I was completely exhausted from the two demanding back-to-back meets.

I went from being at the top of the meet to being somewhere in the middle of these incredibly speedy people of all ages from California and Nevada. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience. I was swimming with people who will definitely be swimmers to watch at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I realized that for these people it wasn't just about the fun and games, but that the people in this meet were in the "Big Leagues." These are people who were breaking National Age Group Records, and I was extremely humbled. It was amazing and extremely inspiring that I got the chance to compete in the same meet as them.

Las Vegas!!!!

"Real athletes swim. The rest just play games."

After months of intense training, the moment finally arrived. We were going to Las Vegas for our Winter Age Group Championship Meet. It's a 3-day meet that's usually right before or around the same time as my birthday. The crazy anticipation was tangible in all of us in the week leading up to the meet. This was the very first out-of-state meet that I was going to attend, and I was beyond excited.

Despite being indoors, the pool felt really fast, and Thursday night when we were warming up, they were playing Christmas music through underwater speakers so that all of the swimmers could hear it.

From the moment I swam my first race, I knew that all of my hard work had finally paid off. To the surprise of the entire team, I won gold in the 100 free finals the very first night of the meet, and then found out that I broke the meet record. That was the very first time I had ever won a gold medal at such a big meet, and I was one of the youngest people in my age group. Even my hard-to-please Russian coach smiled and actually said, "Good job!" It was only the second time I had ever heard him say that to anyone in my life.

Our Team Logo

The rest of the meet went just as well. Jordan Stead, Katelyn Farrow, Makenna DuBois, and I were in every single relay and we medaled in 3 out of the 4 relays despite being seeded much lower. We would come back from behind even though we were swimming in the outer lanes, while the inner lanes are the ones predicted to win. I had to anchor (go last) in all four of the relays.
The highlight of the relays was the 200 Medley relay in which we got the gold.

Then, to close out the the weekend, I swam the 200 free and 50 free in finals, Sunday night, medaling in both, and getting another gold medal to add to my collection from the crazy sprint: the 50 free.

Since our team (OC Riptide Aquatics) is only a year and a half old, the performance of all of our swimmers made a splash in Vegas. We created a name for our team, and established it as a force to be reckoned with in the midst of many well-known, esteemed teams.

At the end of the meet, Katelyn and I found out we qualified for sectionals (an even higher meet) in some of our individuals, and that our relays had qualified too. All four of us were going to have to race again, within the next week.

7 Things That Make Swimmers Happy

All these things make a swimmer smile :)

1. Food
2. Tapering
3. Warm down
4. Lightning
5. Dropping time
6. Relays
7. No morning practice!

Food. 

The great thing about swimming is that you work out so much that you can eat everything and anything you want. After an especially hard practice, swimmers are often starving, so any food that they can shovel into their mouth is welcome. Any kind of food makes a swimmer happy after practice.

Tapering.

Tapering makes any athlete happy. Following those intense months of excruciating training, your big meet is in a couple of weeks, and the taper begins. For the non-athletes out there, tapering is what swimmers do after a long period of intense workouts. You dramatically reduce the amount you swim, and since your muscles are conditioned for long, hard workouts, it provides your body with tons of energy and puts you in prime condition for the huge competition coming up. Your body is just itching to work harder, so when the time comes, you can release all of your pent up energy, and you usually drop time. Although we never taper for that long, it comes as a joy to swimmers because it means easy workouts!

Warm down.

Whenever I hear those words, my face breaks out into a huge grin. Warm down means the workout is virtually over, and it's time to relax. It's the time when you can ease your aching muscles and cool off and move as slowly as you want to.

Lightning.
Lightning = no practice! Anything indicating no practice brings happiness to a swimmer. To read more on why lightning is so amazing, read my previous post Lightning: A Swimmer's Friend.

Dropping time. 
There's no greater satisfaction for a swimmer than dropping time. After the countless hours of hard work, dropping time makes it all worth it. The blood, sweat, and tears - all of it finally pays off.

Relays!!!
Relays are the best. Swimming generally isn't a team sport, except when it comes to relays. You're depending on 3 other people, and it makes swimming so much more fun. Everyone always swims their fastest in a relay and we just get so much more competitive!

No morning practice.
Only swimmers get excited when they find out they only have one practice, instead of two. It totally makes my day every time I hear my coach speak those words.